


Pin Your Faith

by Anonymous



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Biting, Brief (non-serious) threat of pregnancy, Consent Issues, Crowley Has A Vulva (Good Omens), Crowley Has a Penis (Good Omens), Cunnilingus, Forced body reconfiguration via magic, Groping, Hell's office politics, Horror, Injury, M/M, Mild Blood, Possessive Behavior, Possessive Sex, Power Imbalance, Rape, Satan ominously reminiscing about Heaven, Specifically wing injury, Unwilling Arousal, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 00:09:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22286746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Satan summons Crowley to Hell for a centennial review, but what Crowley's really there for is a party with the Hellish nobility. He's prepared to hang on Satan's arm, look pretty, and make nice with all the wrong dukes, counts, and presidents. He's been a trophy date before. What he hasn't been is a literal trophy.Beelzebub tells Crowley to unfurl his wings. They have an array of ominous silver pins and orders to arrange Crowley for display. (Taxidermy. That's the word his imagination is skirting around.) It's strictly look, don't touch, but not every demon is smart enough to read the unwritten rules.And then Satan has to fix Crowley up, doesn't he?
Relationships: Crowley/Satan | Lucifer (Good Omens)
Comments: 38
Kudos: 165
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley gets summoned to Beelzebub's office.

Angel station was packed with morning commuters. Outside, rain drenched London. Everyone around Crowley dripped water with every breath and shed cold with every shiver. It was like the crowd had brought the winter drizzle inside with them. To top it all off, all the bus and train predictions in the entire system had been tweaked forward or backward - impossible to tell until you either missed or made your connection - by one minute.

"Excuse me," said the man behind him, for the second time.

Crowley stood firm on the running side of the escalator, his elbow planted on the railing. He did not turn around to acknowledge the man, who thought that if he ran the rest of the dizzying length of the escalator he would make a train that was pulling out in two seconds (not a minute, like the tracker claimed).

The man growled and spat, "Tourists!"

Which Crowley did take an exception to. And he would've spit back that he'd been living in London for longer than anybody else here, but his phone lit up.

 _CROWLEY_ , it said.

The text appeared in italics, which should not have been possible. There was also no name or number displayed. Hell didn't exactly have mobile service of its own. Hell normally had issues figuring out how to interrupt digital service in the first place. Normally his phone would just glow and dump a voice straight into his head. Typing was something else. It suggested someone … smart. And it made Crowley blink behind his sunglasses.

When he opened his eyes there was no man muttering at him from a step up on the escalator. There was still an empty gap stretching out before him, but all the people standing on the opposite side of the steps had vanished. No rainwater drippings. No radiating aura of London chill.

Crowley contemplated tossing his mobile away and vaulting over to the opposite escalator so he could flee to street level.

The phone lit up again.

_IT HAS COME TO OUR ATTENTION THAT YOUR CENTENNIAL REVIEW IS PAST DUE._

Crowley tipped his head all the way back so he nearly fell over. When the next message came through it made his mobile vibrate. He had vibration turned off and his ringtone set at max volume. A shaking, silent phone was almost as alarming as someone in Hell figuring out how to text. The number of demons that clever was limited. Which of them would have been saddled with the task of recalling delinquent field agents…

 _LOOK BACK AT YOUR PHONE BEFORE YOU REACH THE END OF THE ESCALATOR, CROWLEY,_ his mobile ordered, in the same moment that Crowley's shoulders jerked forward without his input, hard enough that his chin bumped his chest.

"Paying attention," he mumbled, sweeping his hair back from his face. "Course I am."

The escalators at Angel were long. Not this long.

Should've gone to Heathrow. Even the most powerful demons didn't want to bother with Heathrow. Crowley looked at his mobile, since he didn't have much of a choice, and then looked at the end of the escalator, which now terminated in a pool of murky gray shadow.

_CHECK IN WITH BEELZEBUB WHEN YOU ARRIVE._

Crowley unclenched his jaw and forced out, "Will do."

Beelzebub was overseeing his review? Beelzebub had kicked him out of the last review they'd overseen and told him Hastur would be in charge for the rest of them. That had been thousands of years ago. Hastur still hadn't gotten over it.

Who knew enough to almost use a phone for real and had enough power to be discussing the Prince of Hell without their title…

_DON'T DRAG YOUR FEET WHEN YOU GET HERE, DARLING._

Crowley dropped heavily onto the step underneath him. "Lord," he croaked. "Long time no… text."

_AMUSING AS ALWAYS._

"Live to please," Crowley mumbled.

_WE KNOW._

He really should've expected that. Exhaling, he reached up and grabbed the escalator railing to haul himself back to his feet. Only Satan knew which demon would be waiting to make sure he didn't 'drag his feet' on his way to Beelzebub's office and he really didn't want to arrive in Hell while sitting on his ass.

The pool of shadow was only a few steps away, now. He shoved his sunglasses up his nose. Conjured an elastic to pull his hair back with. The stifling heat of Hell already clutched at his legs. He watched the shadows rise up to disappear the steps. Then his shoes. Then his legs, and his hips...

The last message he got before his phone switched off on its own was _WE TRUST YOUR WINGS ARE IN GOOD ORDER._

***

The thing about a magicked escalator delivering him to Hell through a portal of shadow was that Crowley couldn't see the last step.

Now, normally, an escalator would flatten out before kicking the rider off. But escalators were a human invention. Humans invented lots of things. Like construction safety regulations. Hell's escalator ended so abruptly that Crowley toppled forward, arms wheeling, his hand clenched desperately so he wouldn't fling his (dead) phone off where hellhounds might mistake it for a chew toy.

A hand grabbed the knot in his scarf and hauled him upright with a generous application of force to the back of his neck. He choked. Stumbled, as the lights flickered on.

Legion's other hand came up and caught his shoulder. The demon smiled brightly - literally, the protesting fluorescent lights gleamed off their perfect teeth - and their eyelashes fluttered against their face. "Hi, Crowley!"

Crowley wiggled out of Legion's grip so he could tuck his phone away. "How's it shaking, Legion?"

Legion's expression cracked. They folded their arms across their chest. Given that their chest was about as barrel-like as Crowley's own, it was not an intimidating gesture. "Hey, c'mon. We stopped calling you Crawly ages ago, before anybody else did!"

Ugh. Crowley hated it when the disposables had a point. "Hey… Eric."

Legion's - Eric's face lit up again. Perfect teeth, perfect eyelashes, two perfect stalks of hair. They wore combat boots with a steel toe, which went with the elaborately studded belt holding up ragged black jeans. Every time Crowley visited Hell he thought this would be the time he got around to asking Eric where they got the updates for their clothes. Today was not that day.

Today, Crowley could not be accused of 'dragging his feet.'

In fact he'd already started walking by the time Eric replied. "It hasn't been that long since your last presentation. We've been keeping up with the stats. The M25 has produced some brilliant spikes for our side! You should take a look at the graphs before you go! Eric's got the best ones plastered up in their office-"

"You all got an office?" Crowley raised one eyebrow.

"Uh, well, more of a closet. Series of closets. We don't think maintenance ever uses them?" Eric's smile wobbled before they forced it back to full wattage.

Crowley winced from the glare and looked down the crowded corridor ahead. Two-thirds of the lights were on, which meant somebody from maintenance must've just been by, whether or not they were using their closets. And only a few mysterious drops of liquid splatted on his head before he took a sharp left down a deserted hallway. Nobody visited Beelzebub without orders.

"Anyway, we didn't expect to see you back anytime soon!"

"Eric, tip from one professional to another?"

Eric looked like they had never wanted to hear something more in their entire existence.

"Less exclamation marks," Crowley told them, patting their shoulder. "Hastur hates exclamation marks."

"Yeah," Eric agreed, gloomily. Their hair stalks drooped. "Eric found that out the hard way last month."

"Congrats on the, uh, series of mini-offices," Crowley said. Something else he had also never gotten around to asking was how many of Eric there were, or what happened when one of them was discorporated.

They were halfway down the hall. The closer they got to Beelzebub's full-sized office, the narrower the walls grew, until Crowley and Eric were forced to shuffle along shoulder-to-shoulder. They got off easy compared to some others. Crowley knew some demons who didn't maintain human corporations in Hell and he couldn't picture most of them making it all the way to Beelzebub's door.

Speaking of.

Eric glanced sideways at him. "You're supposed to knock," they whispered.

Crowley smoothed his face into something obligingly blank. "Yep." He made sure his sunglasses were situated properly. "You don't have to stick around for this part."

"And get told off for not walking you all the way to the door? No way." But Eric did sidle behind Crowley as he knocked on the glossy obsidian door that lead to Beelzebub's office.

It warped his reflection even before it swung open.

"We're here!" Eric chimed. They shrugged when Crowley half-turned to glare, and cleared their throat to repeat, more sedately, "Delivery as requested, your lowness."

Beelzebub's office had been redone, or their office door had been hooked up to a new room. This room had bright lighting. No throne or desk. Not one filing cabinet, not even an 'in' or 'out' tray to nod in Dagon's direction. There was a high, long table to the side bearing trays of thin things that glinted silver in the light and made Crowley's spine want to curl.

Beelzebub flicked one hand. "You may go now."

The hallway swallowed the sound of Eric's retreating footsteps. Crowley braced himself and walked into Beelzebub's… room, far enough that the door could swing shut. 

"Lord Beelzebub." Crowley bent stiffly at the waist. Textbook formal greeting. He tried not to stare at the trays of silver… He tried not to find a noun for that adjective at all. It was tough. The trays were strongly suggesting nouns.

Beelzebub wasn't wearing their sash or their jacket. Crowley didn't know what that meant, but it couldn't be promising.

They snapped their fingers and the middle of the floor opened up. It took everything Crowley had not to fling himself backward and slam into the stupid obsidian door. Eric had said the M25 was going great, they had the graphs to prove it in a closet somewhere, and Crowley had been filing reports like clockwork. Aziraphale hadn't even written any of them, every one had been his, he didn't know why he was getting the _pit-_

Then a broad stone slab rose out of the hole and if he hadn't been telling it to stay straight, Crowley's spine would've collapsed.

Not the pit.

Just … trays of long silver needles? pins? and a Crowley-sized stone table. Or, actually, a Crowley-length stone table, the width of which… 

_We trust your wings are in good order,_ Satan had said.

"He's pleazzed with your recent work, Crowley," Beelzebub told him, their voice leaning into the buzz. A few of their flies floated across the room to lazily loop around Crowley's head. Crowley didn't have to ask who _he_ was. "He's planning on showing you off thizz evening."

Crowley swallowed the knot in his throat. "Look pretty and chat up all the right dukes. Right. Can do. Should probably go change clothes, though, can pop to my flat and back in a heartbeat."

Beelzebub smiled. It was a terrible thing. Teeth factored in, eventually. What was genuinely concerning was the gleam in their eyes. Any demon worth his brimstone knew to bolt on the rare occasions when Beelzebub looked interested.

"Look pretty, anyway," they said. "Sit on the slab, Crowley. And stretch your wings out. I need a good look at them."

"Lord," Crowley said. He wished he was in a closet looking at graphs with Eric.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley finds out what the silver pins were for. And Satan - or, well, Lucifer - makes his appearance.

Crowley sat cross-legged on the stone slab, his back to Beelzebub. Which would've had his wings stiff and bristling even if Beelzebub's fingers weren't carding through his feathers in a distant imitation of grooming. That suggested some measure of gentleness. What it felt like was a freezing solar wind ironing him out. He let his tongue curl up in his mouth so he wouldn't bite through it. His hands were clenched so tight Beelzebub might need to break his fingers to get him to pull them apart.

Beelzebub admitted, reluctantly, "These wings aren't in the sorriest shape I've ever seen."

"Is that going down in my file? Two points, that kind of thing?" He'd meant it as a joke, but an imagination overly busy with the application of silver pins seized on the idea that maybe it was a point system. Then it asked, 'Does that mean Eric gets 10,000 points to every one of everybody else's?' and it was hard to think about what his own score might be.

"I wouldn't know. Lucifer has already completed your review."

Fantastic. It was a Lucifer kind of day.

Crowley probably should've known that was coming from the whole - he glanced at the stone slab, felt Beelzebub's nail scrape along the shaft of one of his secondaries, ground his teeth - the whole _everything,_ but. A demon wasn't banned from wishful thinking, was he? Throwing aimless hope into the universe at large? Lucifer days were almost worse than Satan days. At least on Satan days you knew what to expect.

Lucifer lived up to the whole light-bringer thing like an open flame. One that could, at any second, snuff out entirely or flare up. Too close, and you were so much charred kindling.

"Don't guess I could find out what's in that review?" he asked.

A manila folder popped into existence on the slab. His name was written in dark red ink. His actual name (not the original, which might as well have been trademarked by Heaven for all the good it did him), the sigil that burned his fingers with hellfire when he signed it.

"What, really?"

"Don't let me stop you," Beelzebub said.

Of course it could be a trap. It was Hell. It was probably a trap.

Beelzebub moved to poke at his bastard primaries and Crowley shuddered. That spot held the small projection of feathers that helped him angle when landing. Letting out an unhappy sound, Beelzebub pinched the feathers between two fingers and their thumb. The wing that wasn't under their scrutiny snapped closed against Crowley's side.

"Don't be a wimp!"

"It smartss," Crowley snapped, which got him pinched harder. He winced and his other wing strained to pull itself even more flat. "Ssorry, Lord."

One of their flies landed on his hand. A hoverfly, thumbnail-sized with brown-latticed wings and a black-and-yellow striped body. It could be worse. It could be a mosquito, or a screwworm. He didn't _think_ there were any parasitic flies that specifically targeted snakes, but then again, he'd been on star duty. What the fuck did he know about the animal kingdom.

"Stretch that wing again before you spoil all my work."

Gulping, Crowley forced his wing back out straight. He tried ignoring the ironed-out feeling of his mussed feathers being fixed back into place. Beelzebub had sunk an edge of ice into their touch.

The folder sat. Waited.

He started to relax his fingers. It was hard to do while keeping his wings taut, hard to focus on both at the same time, so he went slow. Just a glance at the file, that's all he needed. Enough to see if he was completely screwed.

Then the door opened. Crowley yanked his hands up against his stomach.

"I told you I would call when I was ready," Beelzebub muttered. "Do I look ready?"

Crowley's wings twitched. Beelzebub whacked the back of their hand against one and he concentrated on holding his hands as tightly as possible without breaking his fingers himself. The hoverfly crawled onto his thumb and he stared at it, both of them unblinking. Despite his general ignorance on flies he was pretty sure they couldn't blink. 

Footsteps let him know the new arrival was crossing the room.

_BEELZEBUB, YOU KNOW WE APPRECIATE WATCHING YOU WORK._

"This izz all prep. Come back later."

There was a pit in Crowley's stomach, somehow worse than the pit Beelzebub more-than-occasionally threatened people with during extended meetings and poor performance reviews. He felt like he'd walked in on something he wasn't supposed to be overhearing.

_HIS WINGS LOOK FINE. WE DON'T HAVE FOREVER, YOU MUST GET STARTED SOMETIME._

Beelzebub's hands left Crowley's wings. They stood and crossed back into his line of vision. Unfortunately, it was so they could walk over to the table and begin looking at the trays of silver.

Lucifer reached up and shook Crowley's hair free of the elastic. He gently brushed it over Crowley's shoulder. _DARLING. DID BEELZEBUB GAG YOU, OR ARE YOU BEING SHY?_

"Didn't want to interrupt, Lord," Crowley said, carefully.

_EVER THE STICKLER FOR PROTOCOL,_ Lucifer drawled.

"Ehhh. You know. All due respect and all that. Figured I'd keep my mouth shut." Crowley felt a muscle under his eye twitch in alarm that he'd actually let all that out of his mouth.

At the side of the room, a silver pin hit the edge of a tray with a _clink._

No one said anything, but Lucifer laughed. It almost sounded like Beelzebub's flies buzzed louder in response to that, insulted, but that would mean that Beelzebub was casually displaying insult in front of Lucifer. The room was still in one piece, so that wasn't possible. Crowley decided the noise was all his imagination. Then he regretted that, because it reminded him that his imagination had been busy wondering about the silver pins.

_IT'S BEEN TOO LONG._ Lucifer's fingertips brushed along the line of one wing, trailing from a low point all the way up to Crowley's shoulder.

There was suddenly cool air flush against Crowley's back. Crowley looked down at himself. His arms, folded in his lap, still rested on jean-covered legs. But his jacket was gone, along with his shirt, vest, and scarf. Instead he was in a black halter top buttoned snug against his throat. It left his back bare so Lucifer could trace a line down the exposed skin between his shoulderblades. He left behind a trail of sparks, bursts of heat between Crowley's vertebrae.

It was a nice shirt, that was the worst part. Not that he really had anyone to be showing his wings off to. Especially not Earthside.

He slammed the brakes on that train of thought before it could get anywhere.

_BETTER._ Lucifer curved his hand against the front of Crowley's throat and bent to kiss the back of his neck. _TURN AROUND. LET US HAVE A LOOK AT YOU._

The manila folder disappeared. Crowley pressed his lips together. Figured. The first page was likely to have been 'sucks to be you' in Beelzebub's messy scrawl, anyway.

Folding his wings in to avoid whacking Lucifer upside the head, he swiveled. He stretched his legs out over the edge of the slab. When Lucifer took Crowley's sunglasses off, he held them for a heartbeat before vanishing them. He'd let his hair grow long enough to pull back from his face, too, although his was so blond as to be nearly colorless. And his eyes were plain blue. Almost human. Fixed on Crowley's mouth.

Crowley remembered Before, when everybody's outlines had been different. Mutable. Before they'd all settled, more or less, into shapes. He remembered the plans floating around for Humanity. How Lucifer had pored over them. Strange creatures who couldn't mold themselves on their own.

He remembered meeting Lucifer's eyes one day and finding pupils where the night before there had been none.

"Lord," he said, swallowing. "Would've reported in earlier if I'd known I was. Er. Late."

_YOU CAME WHEN CALLED._

"Y...ep," Crowley agreed. "That's me. Obedient."

The corner of Lucifer's mouth curled up. _NO,_ he said. _IT ISN'T._

Lucifer touched his fingertips to Crowley's jaw, but Crowley had already tilted his chin up. He did know how this usually went and he kissed back when Lucifer's mouth pressed to his. He'd behaved himself at parties before. Lucifer rumbled, pleased, and pushed forward so he was standing between Crowley's knees. He rubbed a hand along Crowley's bare arm, his nails just long enough to scrape Crowley's skin. It was reflex for Crowley to open his mouth when Lucifer pushed. It was also reflex for his wings to fold in, anxious, rustling against his sides.

"You're going to mess all his featherzz up."

Lucifer let out a breath against Crowley's mouth and pulled back, smirking. In a conspiratorial tone and without lowering his voice in the slightest, he said, _YOU'D THINK WE WERE INTERRUPTING THEM._

"Juzzt following your orderzz," Beelzebub said, mildly. There was a tray in their hands: a solid mass of silver pins.

Taxidermy. That was the word his imagination had been skirting around.

It must be called something else when it was bugs, wings cast in fragile chitin instead of bone and muscle and feathers. Crowley didn't know what that word was. He did know what a collector's gleam looked like in an eye. Beelzebub's eyes were pale and shone just the way Aziraphale's did when making a new acquisition.

_LAY DOWN. WE'RE KEEPING BEELZEBUB FROM THEIR WORK._

The stone wasn't any particular temperature against his skin, but Crowley still wished he was wearing his own clothing. All his own clothing. He stretched his wings. On his left Lucifer smoothed out some of his primaries. There was a metallic sound as the pins shifted and Crowley didn't need to look to know Beelzebub had set the tray down.

If he'd been on Earth, he would have taken a deep breath to steady himself. Here? Here, he tried to coax his body into remembering that it didn't actually have to breathe. Not breathing meant not moving. Meant not flinching, when Beelzebub came up on his right with a slender pin in their hands.

It was, what? Six inches long? Seven? That seemed way too long, why was it so long, and did it need to be that sharp?

_YOUR EFFORTS THESE PAST FEW DECADES HAS BEEN IMPRESSIVE, CROWLEY. THE M25 WAS A STROKE OF DEMONIC GENIUS. ALL THOSE WAVES OF SIMMERING RAGE. LIKE SO MUCH SEA FOAM ON A SHORE. EACH RAINSTORM, EACH SNOWFALL, WE RECEIVE AN INFLUX OF FURIOUS PRAYERS TOWARD DESTRUCTION._ Lucifer brushed his fingertips along Crowley's jaw, which jerked his attention back to the left.

"Always trying to innovate, Lord. It's - It's about scale, humans are so good at it, all you have to do is find a point of leverage to take advantage. Then you've got, uh. You've got."

_HUSH. WE'RE JUST LETTING YOU KNOW NOT TO WORRY ABOUT YOUR REVIEW._

"Hold still," Beelzebub told him.

Crowley's wings weren't exactly like a bird's. They couldn't be or he'd never achieve lift-off. Physics didn't play in when he moved his wings. But they were shaped like a bird's: the feathers mapped out the same. There were lines of bone holding them up, and flesh along the bone where feathers attached. All his feathers were sensitive, it was the reason angels groomed each other, but the skin and muscle along the bones…

This would hurt.

Whatever stone the slab was made from, it accepted the first pin without complaint. Not so much for Crowley. Beelzebub guided the point through the gap between his right wing's radius and ulna. Soft down was pushed aside and then squashed under the flat head of the pin.

The metal wasn't alive. It didn't burn cold like Beelzebub's touch, or hot like Lucifer's.

It only felt like a six-to-seven-inch piece of metal being pushed through muscle and sinew and feather and _bless,_ it hurt. Crowley's body forgot that it didn't need to breathe. He wished that the ceiling wasn't so clean and featureless. He wished he had something to stare at. He wished he could stop watching as Beelzebub raised a second pin, and then a third, marking a line along the upper portion of his wing to stick it in place. After the second he could see flecks of blood smudging their fingertips.

The next pin pierced muscle, sank in a quarter inch, and stopped. Beelzebub frowned. They pulled it free, moved it slightly, and pushed down again in a more acceptable spot. The new wound strained the first.

Crowley couldn't stop it, his wing shuddered. Which pulled at the pins. His vision flared white. "No no, no-"

Lucifer cupped Crowley's jaw. _HUSH,_ he repeated.

Crowley's right wing flattened out and went still. Almost like it was dead. Except it wasn't numb, and he could feel when the next pin went in. He actually tried to move it and couldn't.

Something frantic rose up between his ribs. Something scaled. Something spiral-shaped, or trying, except the edges of this body were locked into place.

_BEELZEBUB WILL FRAME THE BONES IN PLACE BEFORE WORKING ON YOUR FLIGHT FEATHERS. IT WILL BE OVER BEFORE YOU KNOW IT._ Lucifer rubbed his thumb back and forth against Crowley's jaw. His eyes were on Beelzebub's hands, not Crowley's face. _TONIGHT WE'RE HOSTING THE DARK COUNCIL, AMONGST OTHERS. THEY'LL ALL HAVE THE SENSE TO SEE HOW APPRECIATED YOU ARE._

Crowley attempted a noise of understanding. He couldn't do it. He couldn't shift, couldn't force his wings away, couldn't call up scales and fangs, couldn't escape to somewhere-

A pin flashed bright between Beelzebub's bloodstained fingers. It went down in one of his coverts. He could barely feel it there. The metal pulled on the feather's shaft and stung, but didn't scream.

_YOU MUST BE AWARE THAT YOU HAD YOUR SKEPTICS AFTER YOUR LAST PRESENTATION._

If Beelzebub wasn't going to bring up that they'd been one of them, Crowley wasn't going to, either. Not with them carefully teasing out the end point of bone beneath all of Crowley's feathers. Not with so many pins left on the tray. Insect display involved glass cases, right? Airless, sealed glass cases. Or was it blocks of resin?

A hand, still stroking his face, slower now, turning him slightly to look to his left. He realized Lucifer was waiting for an answer. He let his body take a deep breath, swallowed the coiled panic in his chest, and tried: "C-Can't fault a demon for wanting to see results first."

_YOU CAN'T,_ Lucifer agreed, emphasis on the first word. He held his hand out. _WE'LL START ON THIS WING FOR YOU, BEELZEBUB._

Beelzebub placed a pin flat across his palm. "They're sharp enough to nick bone," they warned him.

"Are they?" Crowley asked, and then deliberately bit down on his tongue.

Lucifer ignored him, thank…

_WE RECALL._

He didn't have to search to locate where he wanted to put the pin in Crowley's left wing. He immediately found the spot where Crowley's left radius and ulna tapered together, gently placed his fingers there to hold Crowley's wing in place. He aimed the pin for the hollow spot between thin bones. Crowley's left wing wasn't magically, magnetically flat against stone like the right was for Beelzebub. He would actually have to hold still while Lucifer did this. The spiral of panic rolled over in his stomach.

_YOU HAVE ALWAYS HAD MAGNIFICENT WINGS,_ Lucifer murmured, carefully driving the tip of the pin through feathers, past skin and muscle and finally into stone beneath. He went slow. Crowley could feel himself opening under the silver point. _YOU WOULDN'T REMEMBER THIS, DARLING, PERSPECTIVE AND ALL, BUT THEY MADE YOU LOOK LIKE YOU WERE FLOATING FREELY IN DEEP SPACE WHILE YOU DID YOUR STAR WORK._

He pressed his thumb against the flat metal head of the pin, then carefully smoothed Crowley's feathers out. There was a small red stain on his skin. Crowley's tongue twisted up behind his lips, which fortunately prevented him from commenting.

At their right, Beelzebub silently turned away and walked to the table at the side of the room.

Lucifer reached across the slab and picked up another pin. He found the spot below the tapered line of Crowley's ulna, directly past the first pin, and teased the point of this pin through Crowley's feathers. Pushed, just slightly, until the silver pierced skin. As it sank Crowley drew deep breaths and choked on every one of them and listened to his feathers rustle as his left wing shook. The second pin stretched his muscle and pulled at the first wound, a sharp white line of pain that traced itself across Crowley's vision, and his wing shook.

_IT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE SO TENSE. THINK OF IT LIKE VACUUM AND RELAX, PET. IT WILL BE EASIER TO HOLD STILL._

Satan didn't talk about Before. Lucifer didn't talk about Before. Nobody talked about Before, except Aziraphale, sometimes, usually when he was so drunk that Crowley had to make sure he had pillows propping him up on the couch, and - And Crowley had to stop thinking about that because Lucifer was looking at him, head tilted, a loose lock of blond hair across his forehead and his almost-human blue eyes on Crowley's yellow ones.

"Lord," Beelzebub said.

Lucifer glanced up. Beelzebub held out a white handkerchief. Lucifer stared at it, then sighed and took it from them, swiping it across his thumb to clean Crowley's blood off his skin.

"I believe you told the Dark Counzzil you would meet with them this afternoon," Beelzebub said. They walked along the edge of the slab to examine Crowley's primaries, out toward the edge of his wing.

_IS THAT YOUR WAY OF TELLING ME TO MAKE MYSELF SCARCE, BEELZEBUB?_

If there had been anywhere for it to go, Crowley's stomach would've dropped. The shift from _we_ to _me,_ from plural to singular, always meant - something. Usually Crowley was able to flee the premises before he found out what, exactly.

"I don't have the afternoon off." Beelzebub sniffed. Moved some of Crowley's feathers. "It'll be me they interrupt when they lose what little patience they have."

Lucifer raised an eyebrow. _I ALREADY SAID THAT I APPRECIATE WATCHING YOU WORK._

"They'll delay me here," Beelzebub said. Aimed another pin through another feather. Another distant tug of pain, nothing like the burning along the tops of his wings. They kept their eyes and hands on Crowley's wings and ignored Lucifer staring at them while they continued. "I could ask Dagon to deal with it, but they'll want to know why she's there and you know how Zaebos izz. I already had to explain twice that I don't want that blessed crocodile of hers at the exhibition tonight."

_THERE MIGHT,_ Lucifer said, absently tracing the flat head of a pin with his thumb, getting blood on himself again in the process, _BE USE FOR A CROCODILE._

Now Beelzebub did lift their head. The gleam had faded from their eyes, leaving them dull. "Please do not feed anyone to a crocodile at the party. Zaebos will be smug and it'll get gore everywhere. Including Crowley."

_SINCE YOU SAID PLEASE._

"My endless gratitude, Lord," said Beelzebub, in the same tone of voice that Aziraphale used when saying 'Thank you for your patronage' to bookshop visitors.

Wiping his hand on the handkerchief again, Lucifer straightened up. _I NEVER TOLD THE COUNCIL I WOULD STAY FOR THE DURATION OF THEIR MEETING, BUT I'LL MAKE MYSELF KNOWN. I LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOUR COMPLETED WORK, BEELZEBUB._

Beelzebub bowed.

Lucifer crossed to the end of the table and touched Beelzebub's jaw. They allowed themself to be gently brought upright. _WINGS ONLY. NOTHING THROUGH HIS FLESH. REMEMBER YOURSELF, MY PRINCE._

"I am not in the habit of forgetting your instructionzz, Lord."

Lucifer smiled, his lips closed. _RECALLING IS NOT THE SAME AS HEEDING._

Beelzebub lifted both hands, palms up and empty, as if to say, 'No pins.' Like a younger sibling who knew exactly where the invisible lines were, and was sure that no one else knew. Least of all Crowley.

Since the height difference was so pronounced, Lucifer had to bend at the waist to press a kiss to Beelzebub's temple. Several of their flies settled briefly on his shoulder, and one stayed there while the rest lifted off again to buzz in circles about their head. He touched two fingers to the medal at their throat and then walked away, carrying the fly with him.

Once the door had shut, Beelzebub whipped around. Their flies buzzed and several dropped down to hover just in front of Crowley's eyes, leaving his field of vision a blurry iridescent cloud. 

"Does he _alwayzz_ talk about Before, when he's with you?"

Crowley cast them a wild look. "No!"

Beelzebub grimaced, as if that answer was somehow not the one they wanted. The flies spun back to them and they raised a hand. Three more silver pins caught the cold light. They began pinning out the bottom of Crowley's right wing. The work on these feathers, unconnected to muscle, went fast.

"He'zz in a mood. The Dark Council is whining about Armageddon again."

Everyone knew the Dark Council had been plotting Armageddon since the moment Hell had formed: new-demons slamming into sulfur lakes and potassium firespouts, tectonic adjustment via the force of ten million bodies meeting rock. The joke went, at least before the joker had his tongue cut out, 'The Dark Council will have finished knitting the baby blanket when the Antichrist sits on the throne beside his father.'

It wasn't a very good joke. Hence the tongue-cutting.

"Thousandzz of years and those fuckerzz still haven't picked out the color of the bannerzz," Beelzebub muttered. They'd moved on to Crowley's left wing.

Crowley had absolutely no idea what he was expected to say to that, so he didn't.

"Here they are moaning about making sure the Antichrist is born on an auspicious date. As if time hazz meaning." Beelzebub jabbed one of his coverts, swore, yanked the pin out and pressed their thumb to the spot. Crowley's jaw snapped with the force of Beelzebub's magic sinking into him, knitting the offending misplaced hole in his feather closed. The pin went down in another spot that didn't feel far off from the first.

It definitely wasn't Crowley's imagination that the rest of the pins went in with more force than necessary. By the end, he had his fist pressed to his forehead, and his eyes screwed shut. He could feel the hoverfly crawling over his knuckles but couldn't make himself look at it.

Beelzebub tapped the top of his head. "Put your hand down," they ordered. When Crowley opened his eyes their hands were on their hips. "The party will begin soon, and you need to be secured."

"Secured?"

"You're not really in a position to ask questionzz."

Crowley put his hand back on the slab.

Suddenly there was a strip of leather wedged between his teeth, tied into an uncomfortable knot at the back of his head. He had time to think _What?_ before the stone flared supernova hot at his back, a distressingly familiar sensation. He bit down and screamed around rotten leather. He tried to flail, too, but in the same instant the stone went molten it also wrapped cuffs around his wrists and ankles. The air tasted of fumes.

"Wimp," Beelzebub snapped.

They walked around to the other end of the slab. He registered the stone going solid behind him again, and it felt like his skin was stuck to it, now. He was panting, but the effort of taking in great gasps of air did nothing to wriggle him on the stone at all.

It didn't make any sense until Beelzebub pressed down on the edge of the slab, and the stone tilted up. Not completely, not enough so that Crowley faced upright. But it did tilt into a low angle. From the calculating look on Beelzebub's face, he guessed it was to make it easier to see his wings without having to bend down. Whatever they'd done to secure him to the stone kept him from sliding. There was no way the pins, as numerous as they were, would've supported his weight on their own.

"As good as it'zz going to get."

Crowley said nothing. His wings were tender and aching and miserable, and now his back burned with residual heat, and there were no words he wanted to try to pull past the gag still in his mouth.

Then Beelzebub stepped up to his side, announced, "Last touch," and it clicked that he should be worried about the fact that the gag was still in place. Beelzebub glanced at him, then back down. Their thumb settled on one of his secondaries, slightly off-center.

All the pain from the pins fell away at their touch.

What hurt was the cold press of Beelzebub's hand. It felt like the emptiness of deep space, of vacuum. It felt like the whorls of their fingerprints etched into the keratin of the black feather under her touch. Had their bodies had fingerprints, before humanity? Crowley couldn't remember, and it didn't matter, they were here now, ridges and valleys of skin that cut into and across him, searing over whatever scraps of soul remained that made him a creature with wings in the first place. The gag didn't muffle the sound he made.

Beelzebub stepped back, appraising.

The spot they'd touched burned like a comet's tail. Crowley couldn't see it, but there had to be a mark.

Artists signed their work, his brain reminded him unhelpfully.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everybody knows the party doesn't really start until Satan walks in, but sometimes you get a demon too arrogant to remember that.

Beelzebub shrugged on their jacket and sash before the party began, their ultimate accessory an expression that strongly communicated their desire to be anywhere else.

No glass case. No block of resin. Just the blood cleaned off his feathers, the gag removed, his Satan-gifted shirt smoothed out. Crowley lay on the slab, stared at the ceiling, and tried to watch the crowd from the corner of his eye. No one had commented on Satan's late arrival. No one was even gossiping about when he might show up.

It paid to rule Hell.

"Ligur. Hastur," Beelzebub said, blandly, their eyes scanning the now crowded room. If there was some order to the demons walking up to greet them Crowley couldn't figure it.

"Beelzebub," Ligur said, likewise not making eye contact. He was grimacing. "This is the present for the Dark Council?"

"What his Lordship deems to gift to the Council is the Council's business," Beelzebub said.

Ligur's eyes glinted at them, but then again, Ligur had never particularly hungered for a Council seat. Not the way Hastur did. Not in Crowley's hearing, anyway. The frog and chameleon were both present, their breathing a twin chorus of soft wheezing. Beelzebub must have put their foot down only on animals that stood some chance of causing a scene.

"I don't see what all the fuss is about," Hastur muttered. He lifted one hand, reached out to Crowley's feathers. 

Crowley tensed. His wrists bumped the stone cuffs holding his hands at his sides. Beelzebub didn't comment, but their flies hung still in the air for a moment.

Hastur withdrew his hand.

The buzzing resumed. Beelzebub said, "The fuss izz that his Lordship wanted to put the demon Crowley on proper display. If you find yourself having difficultiezz interpreting his will, you can ask him about it when he arrives."

A fancy way of dismissing two dukes, who walked off almost immediately. Nobility circled the stone slab, flashing their teeth in distant relations to smiles. Beelzebub returned none of them at their station by Crowley's side. He had the most bizarre feeling that they were, in human terms, hanging out with the cat in the kitchen. Except that the entire party was also streaming through the kitchen to coo at the cat, which would've been happiest clawing all their eyes out.

Out of the mess emerged Zaebos and Malthas.

The count had not brought her crocodile. She did come wearing a gray-green military jacket with a heavy gold epaulette on one shoulder in the shape of a crocodile face. It had glass gems for eyes: yellow-green, speckled through with black, a slender pupil cutting through the center. They matched Zaebos's own when she bent to inspect the pins stuck into Crowley's wings.

"This must have taken ages, Beelzebub."

"There are worse wayzz to spend an afternoon."

Malphus made an amused noise. Dark pupils widened to swallow gray-brown eyes. When he shifted his weight, the black feather lining of his coat flashed in the light.

"I suppose it's good that he's pleased with _something,_ " Zaebos said. "Whatever it takes to put him in a good mood, right?"

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Beelzebub said.

"You're no fun."

"Don't antagonize your betters, Zaebos," Malphas murmured. His voice rasped. Malphas had spoken with a smoker's hoarseness before cigarettes had been invented.

His eyes trailed slowly over Crowley's wings. Crowley would have tried to curl them in, if he hadn't known how much that would hurt.

Zaebos shot Malphas a sulky look. The last time Crowley had seen her, she'd been in plate armor, with blood matting her long black hair. Malphas didn't register the disapproval at all. His raven was missing, too, maybe off conducting grand-president schemes on Malphas's behalf. Crowley had gotten drunk with some of the forty legions that answered to Malphas, once. That raven sounded like a nightmare.

Zaebos turned back to Beelzebub and tilted her head, baring a throat marked with a line of scales. "Is there going to be music, Beelzebub? Tell me there's going to be music."

Beelzebub shrugged. They'd kept their arms crossed the whole evening, but now one of their fingers tapped their arm.

The lights dimmed slightly and sound burst out of … somewhere. The music was a crash and clang of metal, the background whine of a guitar being tortured, the occasional punch of a scream from someone actually being tortured. Crowley really wouldn't have pegged Beelzebub for a pop fan, but the crush of Hellish society didn't seem surprised. He spotted Ligur and Hastur punching the air to the rhythm of the drums.

"Excellent." Zaebos's jaw snapped audibly under a grin. She latched onto Beelzebub's wrist and tugged them into the crowd. "You owe me a dance, my Prince."

No shouting. No breaking bones. Not even a glare. Beelzebub continued to look bored as they were dragged into the sudden explosion of dancing. If Crowley hadn't been watching, he wouldn't have noticed several of their flies drifting to circle Zaebos's arms.

…Huh.

"Those two? That's old news," a papery voice said in his ear, and Crowley abruptly realized Malphas hadn't left. Malphas hadn't joined the dancing. Malphas had, in fact, stepped closer and bent down, so he could place his mouth next to Crowley's ear. He smirked when Crowley's head jerked to the side. He straightened, just a little, still close. Still too close. His coat shifted with him and flashed that black feather lining again. "Beelzebub likes their partners toothy."

Crowley almost wished Beelzebub had left the gag in place, rotten leather and all. At least then he wouldn't have needed to make an effort to control his expression. Bad enough to be without his sunglasses.

"Now, this," Malphas said, eyes inspecting Crowley's torso, "this is genuinely new."

"Your Presidency," Crowley hazarded. When in doubt, default to titles.

The corner of Malphas's mouth turned down. "Mr. President."

"Sorry," Crowley blurted. Which was a mistake, which was weak, which made Malphas's pupils widen even more, but Crowley had started the sentence and couldn't pull the brakes now. "Spent the last thousand years or so with the British."

"Yes. The Dark Council is familiar with your recent … triumphs," Malphas said. A thin, pointed black tongue briefly touched his lower lip. "Lucifer recounted the details to us this afternoon."

"He did?"

"Apparently London is a hotbed of misery, rage, and disappointment. He's pleased. Pleased enough to show you off," Malphas said, his hand slipping under the joke that was Crowley's shirt.

Crowley sucked in his stomach in a futile attempt to get away from the unexpected touch. He'd been watching Malphas's eyes so closely he hadn't even noticed the demon reaching up. He hissed in shock and realized a horrified heartbeat later that Malphas must think Crowley had done it in response to having nails lightly raked over his skin.

Malphas smiled, lips stretching like they were unused to the effort.

He pushed his hand up to Crowley's chest and drew a tapered nail across one of Crowley's nipples. Breathing in only pressed Crowley's chest to Malphas's palm. Crowley jerked his wrists against the cuffs.

Malphas said, "Aren't you a needy little bird," and pinched him. It felt like his nails cut skin. "Or is it serpent? That's what he calls you, you know, when you aren't around. Still so fond of the one great deed you've ever really done."

"Jusst trying to causse trouble," Crowley said. Talking meant he had to breathe. Had to move his chest under Malphas's touch.

Which was wandering back to his stomach. Malphas leaned forward again, so his hot breath hit Crowley's face when he said, "Oh, I believe you're passable at that. But we both know why Satan keeps you around, don't we?"

"Couldn't ssay."

"Your wings might be magnificent, serpent, but I assure you my own are spectacular. Yours aren't enough to maintain our Lord's interest all on their own." Malphas's face was so close to he blocked Crowley's view of the rest of the room. If anyone had noticed they weren't doing anything about it. Crowley tried to look, anyway, tried to spot Beelzebub and Zaebos- Even fucking Hastur and Ligur would do, and Hastur knew- He knew Beelzebub had disapproved of _touching-_

"Look at me," Malphas commanded, "when I am speaking to you."

Crowley bit back a hiss when Malphas began undoing the button and zipper of Crowley's jeans. "Malphas-" he started, thoughts tumbling over each other, wondering if anyone would notice him screaming past the music, whether Beelzebub would respond, whether it would be better or worse for Beelzebub to respond. But it didn't matter, because he didn't get the chance to scream. Malphas's other hand came up to grip his jaw, the press of his hand forcing Crowley's mouth shut.

"Oh, no, you don't get to use my name, _darling._ You're going to hold still and let your betters admire you properly, like we were so generously invited to do."

Ravens were fuck-off big, Crowley remembered. People thought they were small, but they weren't. Their wingspans could get to four feet and they weighed twice as much as crows. And they harassed eagles for shits and giggles.

Fingers slid down the front of Crowley's jeans, underneath thin cloth and across skin. Malphas frowned, the slit of his mouth turning down at the corners. "Not this."

His hand tightened on Crowley's jaw. Crowley's teeth gnashed as demonic power pressed into him from Malphas's fingertips. Dark spirals of pain sank into him and rearranged cells and skin, veins and tissue, so that Malphas's other hand could wrap around a cock. It felt like being turned to putty and pulled into shape, like being forced backwards or inside out, and if Malphas hadn't been holding his jaw shut Crowley would've done a lot more than make choking sounds through grinding teeth.

The power finally fell away, and Malphas's nails cut small lines against Crowley's face. "You're here to be seen. Let's make you a mess, shall we?"

Malphas jerked one hand up and down Crowley's cock. He didn't miraculously slick his hand. He pumped and twisted, friction making Crowley's new cock harden while Crowley himself wished the stone beneath him would go molten.

When Crowley hissed again, in pain, again, Malphas's thumb slid to Crowley's lower lip. "It's a pity you're tied down. There are rumors about the things you can do with that tongue," he said, his thumb dipping into Crowley's mouth.

Chest lurching, Crowley bit down.

"You _snake!"_

The hand on Crowley's cock fell away to grab Crowley's hip. Slightly better. But this came with nails digging into him, grabbing what softness there was to dig knuckles in against bone. Crowley spat blood from his lips and snarled as much as he could without fangs. Malphas snarled back. The hand dripping blood from a mangled thumb lurched to the side and dug straight into Crowley's right wing, up along the top.

_Now_ there was a gag between Crowley's teeth: a wad of black fabric so thick it held his lips apart.

He couldn't move his wrists, or his ankles, couldn't even lift his hips from the stone. But neither of his wings were dead against the slab anymore. They could and did shake. Whatever sound his feathers made was lost in the music.

Malphas shoved his fingers through Crowley's feathers, his nails scraping soft down, until he found a pin that had been set through muscle. He twisted his hand and grinned as Crowley choked. The pin was yanked free. Blood stained the long silver stem. Malphas dropped it and his hand dove back to the same spot. He jabbed the sharp point of a nail into the hole where the pin had been and his grin melted into a rough laugh.

A high whine escaped Crowley's throat. 

Lucifer had said no tearing.

The finger in his wound curled and Malphas yanked again, pulling at Crowley's wing until Crowley thought - white lines of pain lancing his vision again - thought he felt something. Something shift. Something crack. Malphas grabbed Crowley's wing and wrenched and something absolutely did crack. Crowley groaned into the gag.

Malphas bent and licked his neck, at his pulse point. "You like biting," he rasped. "I'll show you biting."

A mild voice asked, _ARE YOU ENJOYING YOURSELF?_

When Malphas spun around, the first person Crowley saw was not Lucifer. The first person he saw was Beelzebub, eyes cold, face blank. Zaebos stood behind them, her arms draped over Beelzebub's shoulders.

_KNEEL._

Malphas dropped to his knees. Crowley saw it, and then he saw Lucifer, standing with his hands behind his back. He had changed into a white shirt, open at the collar. Behind him everyone else in attendance had stopped dancing. The music played on as if the party was still going, though, and it made Crowley wonder just how long ago Lucifer had walked into the room, how long everyone had been silent and watching.

"Your Lordship," Malphas said. Crowley couldn't see the look on his face, but bet there was no grin. "He was presented so well, and no one else had indulged yet. I thought it was no harm, getting things started."

_YOU THOUGHT,_ Lucifer said, raising an eyebrow.

The gag disappeared. Clean air flooded Crowley's lungs. Magic fixed his clothes back into place, although his cock was still uncomfortably half-hard, and Malphas had no sense of scale. These jeans weren't built for this. But the ankle cuffs were still there and Crowley couldn't have moved his legs even if shifting his weight would've helped.

"Lord Beelzebub did fine work," said the grand-president, who should have maybe taken a look at Beelzebub's face before saying so. "I was only showing my appreciation."

Lucifer didn't meet Crowley's eyes but did look at the mess of feathers and blood at the top of Crowley's wing. _WERE YOU, MALPHAS?_

"Your Lordship," Malphas repeated. When in doubt, default to titles.

_DID WE INVITE YOUR INTERFERENCE?_ Lucifer asked, and Crowley - and the room - understood the question was for everyone listening. _CROWLEY IS **OURS.** AS ARE **YOU ALL.** AS WE STATED THIS AFTERNOON, OUR DECISIONS WILL NOT BE QUESTIONED. WE SEE SOME AMONG YOU HAVE NOT UNDERSTOOD THIS MESSAGE. BEELZEBUB?_

"Lord."

_GET CROWLEY OFF THE STONE. OUR GUEST DOESN'T DESERVE TO ADMIRE YOUR WORK IF HE CAN'T APPRECIATE IT._

The slab fell flat and Crowley's head bounced. Beelzebub gestured, not moving from Lucifer's side, or from Zaebos's loose grip. The stone cuffs retracted into the slab. All of the pins lifted. For a moment they hung in the air, half shining silver and half stained with blood, while Crowley fought the teetering edge of a blackout. Then he blinked, or maybe actually blacked out, and the pins were gone.

The music cut off. Crowley's elbow slid on the stone on his first attempt, but a second try got himself propped up. He thought the ragged breaths filling the sudden silence were his own, until he realized he hurt too much to breathe.

At Lucifer's feet, Malphas bent his head.

The back of his black coat began to thin. Wool slowly wore away, revealing the outline of feathers. Behind Lucifer the crowd drew closer, demons shoving down the ones in front so those in the middle could get a better view, and the ones in the back stepping their way up when height wasn't enough of an advantage. Lucifer waited. The press of demons behind him rose and fell in collective inhales and exhales.

Malphas' coat thinned, and thinned, and thinned, until it vanished. Two enormous black wings fanned out behind him.

_ERIC,_ Lucifer said. Two Erics materialized at his sides. _HELP CROWLEY UP._

It took both of Eric to get Crowley off the slab. Much to his horror, his legs wanted to buckle. He ended up clutching one of Eric's sleeves while the demon slid an arm around his waist, and the other Eric braced an arm across Crowley's shoulders. It made his wings strain. He gagged from the pain and both Erics winced when he spit blood on the floor between his feet.

_CROWLEY, IS THAT YOUR BLOOD?_

"Nnno," Crowley managed. "Lord."

_TELL US, DID MALPHAS EXPLAIN HIS INTENTIONS? PERHAPS WE MISUNDERSTAND._

Crowley, who knew better than to dig himself a grave in front of assembled Hellish nobility, felt his jaw open. A rasping voice spilled out of his throat. The echo of Malphas repeated: _"Oh, no, you don't get to use my name,_ darling."

A flinch rippled through the crowd and opened a chasm of space between Lucifer and everyone else - or everyone but Beelzebub. Even Zaebos decided it was time to fade back into the masses. Some demons got squished up against the wall in the scramble. There was no laughter now.

Several flies crawled along Malphas's wings, dipping in and out of his feathers, while Beelzebub's eyes glinted.

From Crowley's lips, the voice continued. _"You're going to hold still and let your betters admire you properly, like we were so generously invited to do."_

Lucifer considered that, staring at Crowley, before his eyes went back to Malphas.

"Your Lordship," Malphas said.

Very slowly, Lucifer knelt. He touched a hand to Malphas' chin and tilted his face up. _IF YOU COVETED BEELZEBUB'S WORK SO FIERCELY, MALPHAS, ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS SPEAK UP._

For their part, Beelzebub lifted both hands and produced … a spike. It was long, and looked like iron, and as thick around as Crowley's finger. He wobbled, one of his knees threatening to give, and the Erics lunged together to keep him upright.

"Take Crowley back to my officezz and-"

_ERIC, STAY WITH CROWLEY IN OUR ROOMS UNTIL WE ARRIVE,_ Lucifer said.

For a split second, Beelzebub's grip on the iron spike tightened. Then they uncurled one hand to wave at the door, which swung open and smashed the nearest crouching demon in the face. "You heard him, Ericzz. Scram."

"Yes, Lord," the Erics chorused.

One added, their voice low, "We'll take a shortcut. C'mon, Crowley."

"Yeah, whatever," Crowley muttered. The first step made him feel like he was going to black out again.

The crowd parted down the middle, opening a path to the door wide enough for Eric to walk him through. Very few people actually watched as they passed. Everyone was too focused on Malphas, Beelzebub, and Lucifer. He thought he saw Hastur and Ligur with a bucket of popcorn of all things.

But then the Erics had him in a hallway he didn't recognize and he had to concentrate on picking up his feet. The floor here was black marble. Black marble wasn't uncommon in Hell, but _clean_ marble was. This floor was so sparkling that Crowley could see his reflection in it. And wish that he couldn't. The walls were clean, too, which meant that he didn't even have any stupid signs to read and distract himself with. They dragged him along, and eventually came to an unfamiliar door at the top of a short staircase.

"It's just three steps, and we'll pick you up," the other Eric said. They weren't lying. It turned out to be no problem for the both of them to haul Crowley up a few inches off the ground.

It was a big problem as far as Crowley staying conscious, though.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley's wings are in rough shape. Luckily(?), Satan's here to fix them. It's not like he hasn't done it before.

It had been a long time since Crowley had suffered a broken wing. He'd forgotten the strobe light effect it had on … everything.

One second: being held up in front of a couch by a dead fireplace, Eric arguing with themselves. "If we put him face down there'll be nothing to hold his head up," vs. "If we put him face up his body will be resting on his wings!" Listening to Eric bicker made Crowley's head hurt, so he shut his eyes.

One second: Together, Eric hauling him onto a high platform bed. The sheets and pillows were all stark white, and there were a lot of pillows. One Eric shoved a pillow under his stomach to prop him up and Crowley felt like he was tumbling forward into a black pit, except the other Eric still had a hand on his arm. It took until Eric was straightening out his left wing to realize it wasn't a pit, the bed just sat up against a black marble wall. If there was symbolism to Satan's bed looking like a cloud against the heavens, Crowley didn't want to think about it. So he didn't.

One second: Four hands on his battered right wing, two voices counting down from five. On three, Crowley reared up and hissed, his jaw snapping.

Both of the Erics scrambled back. "You can't just sit there with it folded up," one of them protested. "We'll put pillows under it, it'll be all right!"

Crowley flattened his wing closer to his side. The bone Malphas had cracked protested, tight spirals of pain flaring, but not as bad as it would've been if Crowley had allowed his wing to be straightened out. "Try me."

Eric flung up both hands, palms out. "Fine, fine! You're not the one he's going to discorporate."

"You can ssspare it."

"That's just cold."

"Stop it, you two!" the other Eric said.

Crowley pressed his face down into a pillow. There were more under him now, raising him off the bed. His left wing had been carefully arranged so its weight didn't pull painfully at his back. Maybe while he was out someone would just cut his right wing off and he could be done with it. Satan might actually discorporate every single Eric for that, and who knew what that would do to entity formerly known as Legion, but right then all Crowley could concentrate on was a voice saying "You always do this, Eric!" and the fact that apparently someone used lavender-scented soap on Satan's sheets.

He decided not to fight the next swell of unconsciousness.

One second: The room was dark. No, wait, he smelled lavender. He was still facedown in the pillows.

He very slowly turned his head to find … the room was dark. Or mostly dark. Somewhere in front of him was a red-orange glow. It took his ears a minute to sort out the sound of popping wood and whispering flame. He let his eyes drift and stared at a bright shape in the wall until it resolved itself into the fireplace, now lit.

A hand brushed his hair away from his face. He wrinkled his nose. Which, somehow, also hurt to do. It was true that Eric deserved to be a bigger asshole than any of them were, but petting him was unnecessary. This was why Eric kept getting themselves discorporated. And he was about to say as much when he felt a kiss pressed to the back of his head.

Oh. Not Eric, then. Not either of them.

The bed shifted. It felt like Lucifer had knelt behind him in order to look him over. Crowley held still and concentrated on the feel of Lucifer smoothing out his feathers. It was better than concentrating on how long he might have been unconscious, how long he'd kept Lucifer waiting.

How he was keeping Lucifer waiting, now. Say something, Crowley. Say anything. Say...

"Pet," sighed into his ear made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. "Lift your wing for me. That's it."

Lucifer settled at his side and let Crowley's less-injured left wing rest across his lap. When he resumed his work tending to Crowley's feathers, his touch was accompanied by sparks. The edge of a primary sizzled as the feather knit itself closed, erasing the mark from Beelzebub's pin. The pain echoed the crackling wood in the fireplace.

"Relax," Lucifer said, once he'd moved onto the median coverts. A thread of amusement seeped into his voice. "Think of it like vacuum."

Making a muffled sound into the pillow, Crowley did his best to mentally cut the line between him and his left wing. He couldn't see another way to relax. It didn't work. His wing did stop straining as hard as it had been. But he could also still feel it as Lucifer continued weaving the holes in his feathers closed, and every line of repairs brought Lucifer's hands closer to the top of Crowley's wing, where the pins had been set down through flesh.

Feathers were thin, the makeup simple. Keratin aligned in neat interlocking rows. The holes Lucifer had busied himself with fixing were only tiny gaps in Crowley's body. Mending them was like healing the scratches Malphas had left behind, or would be, if Lucifer bothered himself with the scratches. Pull the edges of the gaps together. Melt them into each other. It stung. Crowley had to hold himself back from flinching while the repairs progressed and his only distraction was white spots of ache floating at the corners of his eyes.

He shouldn't have thought that last part, about the distraction. Nature abhorred a vacuum, and into the fragile quiet of Crowley's muted groans, Lucifer said, "Beelzebub tells me that you were doing well, before Malphas inserted himself into proceedings."

If by _well_ they meant _silent,_ sure. It'd be nice if Lucifer had the same consistent standards. Or, well. It'd be easy. Easier. "Just trying to live up to Lord Beelzebub's expectations," Crowley mumbled.

"Who convinced them to put on that music?"

Crowley glanced sideways. Lucifer wasn't looking at him. His forehead was wrinkled slightly in thought, and a feather burned as his thumb passed over it, forcing another pinprick closed.

"Count Zaebos was asking," he said. And because gossip usually worked in his favor, even with the ruler of Hell, he added, "She said Lord Beelzebub was no fun and owed her a dance."

Lucifer paused, fingertips brushing Crowley's soft down. His eyes flicked to Crowley's face. "Owed her?"

At the last second Crowley stopped himself from shrugging. It would've moved his wing in Lucifer's grip and jostled the broken one, and he really didn't want to pass out again while walking the decaying rope bridge that was conversation with Lucifer.

"That's what Zaebos said, Lord."

"And Beelzebub tried to imply those rumors about their last party were untrue," Lucifer said.

He moved his thumb through Crowley's down, caressing, so that Crowley had to fight a tiny shiver of - not pleasure, or comfort, he still hurt too much for that. But of not-pain, at least.

The pins had taken actual pieces of flesh with them, where Beelzebub had secured the top of his wing to the stone. They'd said the metal was sharp enough to nick bone. In retrospect, the blackout that had nearly swallowed him when they'd yanked all the pins from his wings at once might've owed something to that.

The gentle not-pain faded while Lucifer braced his palm against the curve of Crowley's wing to hold it still. Crowley dug his hands into the closest pillow. It was very, very soft, and he didn't want to think about what it was filled with.

Sometimes when he lay down to sleep, Crowley's entire body would lurch into wakefulness when his brain tried to drop off too fast. It always felt like tripping straight into a flat plane of concrete. He'd spent more than a few addled minutes cursing whatever blessed angel had programmed _that_ particular flaw into human and human-shaped corporations.

The force of the first hole in his muscle being closed was nothing like that. It did make his whole body reel, though.

"Careful," Lucifer said. "Don't bite through your tongue."

"Lord," Crowley said, reflexively.

He watched red flecks land on the pillow under his chin. He hadn't bitten through his tongue, but he had cut his lip. He let his tongue curl up in his mouth and clenched his jaw away from his lips as Lucifer moved his hands to the next wound.

"These aren't the worst injuries you've ever suffered. Surely you can hold still for this," Lucifer told him. The next wound snapped shut while Crowley's spine tried to curl to make up for the fact that he couldn't jerk out of Lucifer's grip. He got a hand curled around the back of his head for the trouble. "Crowley."

"Sssorry, Lord," Crowley hissed into the pillow.

The hand withdrew. It settled back on his wing. Lucifer was at the spot now where his bones tapered together, where Lucifer himself had so delicately settled a pin through Crowley's flesh. The healing of it felt like having his arm ripped from its socket and left dangling from his shoulder. He looked at his actual arm, still whole, still attached, and felt dizzy.

"What did you do the last time you had to mend a wing on your own?"

The whole left side of Crowley's vision had whited out. He blinked, and the white shifted but didn't disappear. He swallowed and shut that eye, which also didn't change anything. Lucifer was stroking the spot he'd just healed and it wasn't even nice enough to be not-pain.

"Turned into a sssnake."

"For how long?"

"Not ssure." It was probably in a report somewhere. Dagon would know.

"Hmm." Lucifer fixed another hole. Crowley avoided looking at his arm, this time. "I don't see the appeal, myself."

"Lord," Crowley acknowledged.

"Fixing the rest of you will take something else," Lucifer said. His hand was at the end of Crowley's wing. There was another punch of magic, of cells being stretched and multiplied, of skin reconnecting. Then, abruptly, it finished.

Crowley's vision came back to his left eye.

"Whole again," Lucifer said. He touched the back of Crowley's head again, a suggestion. Crowley turned his face so his cheek was smushed against the pillow but he could look up at Lucifer, who touched a hand to his own thigh. "Come here. Let me decide what to do about your other wing."

Crowley fantasized again about just cutting it off. Then he clamped down on that thought in case now was the moment Lucifer decided to develop and/or exercise telepathy.

Straddling Lucifer's lap meant Crowley had to spread his legs and curl his left wing behind him, to keep it from draping heavily over the side of the bed. He kept his arms loosely wrapped around himself.

Lucifer regarded him for a moment. "Do you recall being installed in your first corporation, darling?"

"...Not really. Lord."

Lucifer cupped Crowley's chin in his hand. His thumb rested on Crowley's bottom lip, where his teeth had slashed through skin. "That's a pity. The transition to the physical from the un-physical isn't like getting a fresh body from Dagon." He paused, and his voice got softer. "You wore your hair long, like this. And you never tucked your wings out of sight. None of us did."

Instead of answering Crowley made a sound in the back of his throat. Would it be obvious if he let his wing slip off the bed and pretended to fall down after it? If he deliberately hit his head on the floor, maybe he would pass out. Maybe Lucifer would get bored and wander off before he woke up. Maybe when he woke up, he'd be facing Satan's temper again and all would be wrong with the world in the way it was supposed to be. Nobody talking about Before.

"You split your wing once."

"Hard to forget," he mumbled.

He could still see his left wing half gone, the missing portion sucked into a comet trail. He couldn't remember it hurting. Either the pain had been too big, or having Her favor came with perks Crowley hadn't had much time to experience. It wasn't like he could ask Aziraphale about it.

"A break is simple by comparison," Lucifer went on. "I was able to repair you the last time. We got you back to Heaven in one piece, your assignment complete. Michael never knew, did she?"

"No."

"She would have been furious if she'd found out I didn't simply return you to Heaven when I found you. Michael always thought you were hers."

_No,_ Crowley thought and didn't say. Michael had thought they were all Hers. That had been the problem.

"I need a look at this. Are you going to make me move it, or can you - Ah."

Extending his right wing enough to expose the break made the mangled wound flare in protest. The vision in his right eye disappeared, as if Crowley had never had a right eye in the first place. He tried blinking and realized he'd buckled. He still had his arms clutched around his middle but his head had fallen to Lucifer's shoulder.

"Malphas made a mess of you." Lucifer touched a spot just next to the wound.

"S'what he wanted," Crowley said. Pain made it hard to keep his tongue still.

"I did notice that. But I should fix your wing first."

Crowley let a breath out through his teeth.

"I could simply force the wound closed as I did with the rest of them. But I'm not sure that you would stay conscious without intervention, and I'd rather not resort to that." Cold fingertips slid between still-whole feathers. Lucifer stroked soft down as if there wasn't a bloody, ragged tear in Crowley's wing just an inch away. "Tell me what you remember about the time I found you with your wing split."

Now _Crowley_ had to reminisce? To _Lucifer,_ who was using his God damned Morningstar voice like that was just what they did on Tuesdays now?

Being back with Malphas would be easier.

"Wasn't… watching," Crowley said. If it was a problem that his face was buried in Lucifer's shoulder, that his voice was muffled, there was no reprimand. He kept talking, and his voice dropped further and further into a mutter. "Forgot about scale. It was. Distances were hard, then, and I wasn't watching. Let myself get clipped. Out in the middle of nowhere. Literally, there wasn't anything there yet. Comet shouldn't even have been on that course."

"After," Lucifer prodded.

"You fixed the missing parts," he said, knowing it sounded stupid. He took a deep breath and then regretted it. Lucifer's shirt smelled like lavender, too. "Everything was … flat, and unbalanced. Then it was like. Being poured back into shape."

"It felt flat because it was. You may not remember being installed into a body, but I know you recall your ethereal form because you still have something like it. And there was another shape we all had, before that. Do you remember when you were still two dimensional, love? Before Her gift of depth?"

It wasn't a question. Lucifer settled his fingers on the back of Crowley's neck and kept talking while Crowley tried not to react to an endearment he hadn't heard since he Fell. Lucifer had loved him. Lucifer had loved all of his angels. That had been the problem.

Lucifer said, "When your wing split, I sent you back to that. Then it was a simple matter to fill you in to your edges and return you to your body. No more injured wing."

For a long minute the only sound was the fireplace.

Finally Crowley said, "Should I count down from three?"

It earned him a small laugh. "That's the sort of thing that drew me to you in the first place."

And then he said something that was almost like ʏ̵̙̺̏̃̏́͂ɘ̴̗̬̘̭͂͋̽|̵̳̭̤͔̻͕̞̘̪ẅ̵͙̰͉̘̘͔͠ợ̵̗̥͇̜̋̏͊̄ɿ̵̠̓̍͐̓̅̂̌͘Ɔ̵̡̡̳͖͙̲̔̎͒̽̉͑̇͜ͅ.

Crowley didn't want to think about the fact that his newest name, turned inside out, sounded like an echo of his angelic name. Luckily, there wasn't any time to think. Lucifer hadn't let him count down from three.

What it felt like was being ᵈᶦˢˢᵒˡᵛᵉᵈ. Like 𝕓𝕖𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕔𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕜𝕖𝕕 𝕠𝕡𝕖𝕟 and 𝖘𝖍𝖆𝖉𝖔𝖜 spilling from the break. Or like 𝐿𝐼𝒢𝐻𝒯 retreating from him and the whole of him spreading out in the empty plane left behind. He stretched and there was 𝕟𝕠𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 there, 𝕟𝕠𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 to greet him, 𝕟𝕠𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 shining down on him. Just the inside-out echo of ̷̝͔̯̓ʏ̷̮͕̞̙̎̂͒̋ɘ̵̢͕͘|̵̩͔̰̺͎̂w̸̦͔̽͋̂ỏ̶̦̥̗͙̋̍̒ɿ̸̛̗̟́Ɔ̴̡̩͇͚̝͌ and _nothing else._

Not the feel of his own wings, of a body, not the cool pressure of Lucifer's hand on him or rattling pulses of pain or Her light or Aziraphale's laugh, just 𝖘𝖍𝖆𝖉𝖔𝖜, just ̵̫̩̋ʏ̶͙̽̄ɘ̵͚̥͊̈́|̶͔̆ẘ̷̥̟̌o̸̺̘͐͛ɿ̴̧̝̚Ɔ̷͖̓andnothingelse, alone, _pinnedinplace_ with nowheretogo beca _usenowh_ ereexi _stedy_ et, there was 𝕟𝕠𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘, not even an echo—

_ALL DONE, LOVE._


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley is whole and healed and in Satan's bed. It'd be a shame to waste the opportunity.

"Do you remember?" Satan asked.

"Remember?"

"Going from un-physical to physical," Satan said, dryly, his hand sliding under Crowley's bare knee. Crowley realized several things in succession. One: Satan was kneeling between his legs. Two: his legs were, in fact, bare. Three: Morningstar voice. Lucifer, not Satan.

He stopped counting after that. There were too many things to realize.

"No, Lord," he said, looking up at the ceiling.

He was lying faceup on the bed. He was in the middle of the bed. The bed wasn't big enough for his wings to stretch all the way out on, so they were folded at his sides. He was undressed from the waist down. The ridiculous high-necked backless halter top was still on him, buttoned snug against his throat. Satan - Lucifer. Lucifer, of course, was still in his own clothes, although his white shirt was undone. It gaped open when Lucifer pulled Crowley's knee to the side and laid a hand on his thigh.

"It's to be expected," he said. "You never lost consciousness, although if you don't remember the transition I imagine you also don't remember the last ten minutes."

Had it been ten whole minutes?

"Approximately."

Crowley cringed. He hadn't meant to say that out loud.

"You aren't missing much," said the being who remembered the past ten minutes perfectly. "I walked you through the usual reincorporation questions. You answered."

Crowley covered his face with one hand and clutched at the sheets with the other. He had been through the reincorporation process before. The idea of Lucifer himself asking 'Is there numbness in your extremities?' or 'Do you have the correct amount of extremities?' or 'Is your spine _supposed_ to do that?' was nearly unimaginable. Also, it absolutely did not take ten minutes. Dagon's people pretty much kicked a demon out the door as soon as he could stand upright.

Getting Crowley out of half his clothes might've taken up the other time.

Realization number whatever: there was a slim pillow underneath him, lifting his hips off the bed. He bit the inside of his cheek and did not flinch when Lucifer's fingers moved from his thigh to wrap around the base of the cock Malphas had given him.

"Malphas has a poor sense of scale," Lucifer said.

Crowley made a noise.

"Darling, eight minutes ago you told me you weren't in any residual pain." Lucifer lightly dragged his palm along the length of Crowley's cock. "Do you want to revise that answer?"

"No."

Lucifer let go of him. Or, let go of his cock. He kept a hand braced on Crowley's knee, so Crowley couldn't have closed his legs even if Lucifer hadn't been kneeling between them. Crowley forced himself to move his hand off his face and tangle it in his hair. Looked at Lucifer and let his head roll to the side. Concentrated.

It didn't hurt, when he rearranged his cells and skin, veins and tissue on his own. It didn't feel like being turned to putty.

Lucifer looked at him for a long moment. His eyes fell partly shut when Crowley took a risk and reached behind his neck to undo the buttons on the halter top. Lucifer watched him free himself from the fabric and slowly pull the top off. If his wings hadn't been in the way, he would've let it crumple on the bed, a puddle of shadow on the white sheets. But his wings were in the way, so he tossed the halter top to the floor. Stretched his arm back up and folded it under his head.

"You were so obliging, when we were testing the human blueprints," Lucifer said. "Recreated the sketches so faithfully. Like I knew you could. I did like this particular one."

Crowley hesitated, and then took another risk and said, his heart nearly in his throat, "I hid my wings for that."

Blue eyes flicked to his face. "You did," Lucifer said.

It had been after the incident with the comet. Not that long after, though. Crowley had still been touching his wing all the time, making sure it was still whole, trying not to give away and of his anxiety where Michael could see it. He had been told to report all mishaps and injuries to his own supervisor.

And, in so many words, to stop letting other Archangels interfere in Michael's department.

Lucifer had only asked him for a small favor. It'd seemed harmless. _The sketches just aren't the same as a model, love._

"Should I…" Crowley started.

"No."

Crowley looked up at the ceiling.

Lucifer moved so he was lying on the bed, propped up on one elbow. He kissed Crowley's thigh and trailed two fingertips along Crowley's cunt. Crowley kept his knees up and took in an audible breath when Lucifer's mouth followed the path his hand had just taken. He got a pleased noise in response, and kept looking at the ceiling. He spread his legs a little before Lucifer had to prompt him to do it. It was always better to do things before Lucifer had to prompt him to.

Crowley had acted in bed before. Faked it. With humans who didn't turn out to be as interesting once they'd already been tempted. With demons who had seemed like a better idea before Crowley remembered that demons were _never_ a good idea. With himself, a couple times, just to see what it was like. (Weird. Unsatisfying. Crowley still wasn't sure what he had expected.)

Faking it was not an option with Lucifer.

Anxiety and arousal were uncomfortably close impulses already, while in a human body, and Crowley was in as human a body as a demon could get. He watched the firelight flicker on the ceiling and told himself that the rise of his pulse was because Lucifer was kissing the crease where his leg joined his hip. And he held his knees wide open.

Lucifer pressed, dipping his fingers into Crowley's cunt. He was dry and so was Lucifer's hand. A miracle would be taken poorly, but angling his hips so Lucifer's fingers were deeper in him just made him look eager. Okay. He pushed his hips up when Lucifer pulled his hand away. Whimpered when Lucifer breathed out a laugh.

Another minute and he would be wet, and then… 

And then Lucifer's mouth closed on his thigh. Teeth scraped his skin, hard enough to pinch. After so long without any pain the sudden burst of it was bright at the back of Crowley's eyes. Startled, he gasped, and his leg jerked. Lucifer shifted his weight so he could hold Crowley's leg still and put his mouth back to the same spot, biting again. Harder this time. 

"You like biting," Lucifer told him, and kissed the mark he'd just left.

He did not add _I'll show you biting_ in a hoarse imitation of Malphas's voice, but Crowley heard it anyway.

Crowley said, "Yeah," slightly breathless.

He braced himself for another bite and channeled his flinch into a whine when Lucifer's lips closed on his clit, infinitely gentle.

Lucifer moved his tongue and teased one finger past the entrance to Crowley's cunt. The attention sparked along Crowley's spine. It crackled in his chest when Lucifer sucked on his clit. Lucifer curled his finger to rub the hard edge of his knuckle against Crowley.

Deliberately strangling a moan for the hitched sound it would make, Crowley dug both hands into the bed. Lucifer dipped his head. His wet hand curled over Crowley's thigh so he could lick into Crowley and start moving his tongue back and forth. The movement made Crowley's hips jerk. He heard more than he felt that he was starting to get wet. Lucifer stopped fucking his cunt for a second to kiss his clit, a brief, rough press that made Crowley's hands clench.

"Lord."

Lucifer raised his head. His mouth and chin were wet and shone in the firelight. When Crowley's breath stuttered, he smirked, pressing a kiss to Crowley's thigh.

"You can use my name, love. I've missed hearing you say it."

His throat tightened. "Lord, I-"

"Crowley."

It felt like gravity came unhinged. But the room couldn't be tilting because Crowley didn't slide off the bed. He was just so hot. His skin was flushed, all over, and the sheets were stuck to his back. His elbow hit his wing, which he'd forgotten was there. It called up a bright starburst of… not pleasure. But his pulse spiked. His cunt throbbed. He immediately stretched both arms above his head to stop it from happening again and his fingers touched the black stone wall. There was no headboard to anchor himself on.

Lucifer rolled his tongue along the edge of Crowley's clit. "My name."

"Fuck."

Lucifer laughed. "Darling."

Think of - Think of _acting,_ think of _recreating._ He'd done that, once, literally, looking at unrolled blueprints and Lucifer's curious expression. Had wanted to please him with the imitations. He could do that again.

"Lucifer. _Please._ "

"That was a nice touch," Lucifer told him, after the slightest pause. His voice was thicker than it had been a second ago. "Please what?"

Finish this.

"Please," he said, again, since it had gone over well (it had the first time, in Heaven, why wouldn't it now?). "Lucifer, it's not enough, please."

"All you had to do was speak up, love."

Another kiss to Crowley's clit, rough enough to bring him up to the edge but not over. Then Lucifer was kissing his way up the flat plane of Crowley's stomach and chest. He stopped to close his mouth over one of Crowley's nipples and swipe his tongue across Crowley's skin. Bit down again. The frizzing edge of not-pleasure sank back, startled. Lucifer kissed the mark and then pressed his face to Crowley's throat and left another. That one, it felt like his teeth broke skin.

"Lord."

"No." Lucifer kissed Crowley's jaw. His mouth was too wet to tell if any of it was blood. When he kissed Crowley's lips and forced his tongue into Crowley's mouth, Crowley couldn't taste copper, could only taste himself, but…

Lucifer pressed his hips to Crowley's. The white shirt hung open, but at some point when Crowley hadn't been paying attention Lucifer's slacks had been miracled away. Crowley's hand lost purchase on the sheets and he barely managed to latch onto Lucifer's shoulder in time to hold himself still while Lucifer thrust his cock into Crowley's cunt.

Back to begging. The thing was, once it was over, Lucifer always left. Crowley left. Crowley got to leave. Crowley got dismissed, once Lucifer was done.

He had never been fucked in Lucifer's bed before, but he didn't think begging would go over worse here. Especially if he echoed what he could remember saying that time in Heaven.

"Lucifer." He moved. Ow, yeah, the skin on his throat had been broken. He pushed that thought away and called up everything humanity had ever taught him about pleading for mercy. Let it sink into his voice, make it thready and as flushed as his skin. He thrashed, when Lucifer shoved into him particularly hard. "Please. Don't stop. I'm so - I don't know, I just. Don't stop, please."

Lucifer's hips snapped against his. "I cannot imagine why Malphas thought I might let him have this. Nothing about your display invited touch."

Gasping kept him from needing to formulate a response. And Lucifer was making shallow, possessive thrusts, anyway, keeping his cock buried in Crowley's cunt, stretching Crowley open, so real gasps weren't that far out of reach. Uncomfortably close to gagging, though. He kept having to stop himself from digging his nails into Lucifer's shoulder.

"Small minds mired in inconsequential details and easily distracted." Lucifer nuzzled Crowley's hair. Crowley took the hint, tilting his head so Lucifer could kiss him again. When he pulled back his eyes were bright. "So concerned about taking advantage they couldn't see the point of the evening."

"The point?" Mirroring, like begging, worked. Sometimes.

"What the Dark Council is always concerned with. Armageddon. Rock your hips for me, darling." Lucifer's eyes shut briefly when Crowley obliged. He shifted, getting himself up on one knee. It turned out to be so he could reach over and run a hand across Crowley's wing.

Crowley whined.

"This is why I didn't want you to hide your wings," Lucifer explained, trailing his hand through Crowley's feathers. He stroked his fingertips against soft down. "They're bickering about the timing. Timing isn't important. We'll make the time ourselves. What matters is location, environment."

It would be smart to say something. Crowley swallowed and stayed silent. Lucifer's hand had wrapped over the top of his wing, and he worked his thumb through Crowley's feathers to tease the sensitive skin underneath. His wing shook. He felt himself clench around Lucifer's cock. A rough noise came from the back of Lucifer's throat. He kissed Crowley again. Kept kissing him, while Crowley came in hard shudders that echoed along his wings.

"You've done such marvelous work with London," Lucifer eventually said. He rolled his thumb in a small circle, making the end of Crowley's wing curl.

The orgasm ebbed out of him, along with the tension coiled in his muscles. He splayed his hand flat against Lucifer's shoulder. Rocked his hips again, looked up at Lucifer through his lashes. Half finished.

Lucifer shoved forward one last time. Crowley hooked a leg around one of his. Lucifer came hot and sticky inside him, letting out the first small moan of the day. Crowley kept relaxing.

Dismissal would come soon.

A moment later Lucifer pressed his forehead to Crowley's. "London is the only city on Earth ringed with a physical tribute to evil. A wall against Heaven's interference. Where better to raise the Antichrist?"

The _Antichrist._

Crowley went rigid, his leg still tangled with Lucifer's.

"Let me up, unless you want me to stay in you. Not that I'm opposed," Lucifer murmured, "but I'd rather not crush your wings."

He waited while Crowley carefully stretched out his leg. When he was free, he moved back, cock sliding out of Crowley's cunt. Which was wet and dripping. Crowley tried not to feel it and couldn't, because Lucifer was kneeling in front of him again and staring between Crowley's legs, looking immensely pleased.

A minute later and Lucifer had peeled his shirt off, throwing it to the floor with Crowley's. Crowley was not dismissed.

Lucifer sat against the pillows and pulled Crowley into his lap. He didn't protest when Crowley folded his wings up and tucked them narrowly behind himself. Lucifer raked a hand through Crowley's hair, sweeping it back from his face. Crowley didn't feel sweaty and flushed anymore. His skin was clammy and chilled. He could feel tiny spikes of pain from every mark Lucifer had left.

"You look like someone's walked over your grave, Crowley," Lucifer teased.

He'd been taken apart. He'd been reset to two dimensions. His corporation had been dissolved, and _Satan_ had been the one to put him back together. Satan, who'd worked on the original human blueprints, who had tested them on Crowley, who was in a nostalgic mood.

"Just… tired."

Crowley turned his head and kissed Lucifer's wrist. The ache of being fucked was starting to filter through the fading haze of orgasm, the residual warmth in his wings. His hips hurt.

"You know I would have told you," Lucifer said, cupping Crowley's face in his hand, "if I was using you for that. I would want you prepared and participating."

Crowley said, "Yeah," slightly breathless.

Gravity came unhinged again. He leaned into Lucifer's palm so he wouldn't tilt with the rest of the room. Relief was so alien here, it left him unmoored.

"The Antichrist must be partly human. Raised in a human place. We made clear to the Dark Council this afternoon that London is one of our top choices." Lucifer let go of him. Absently stroked his hair, when Crowley put his forehead against Lucifer's shoulder. "There will come a day, Crowley, when we are no longer limited to the confines of Hell. The whole of Earth and the sprawl of Heaven will be ours. As it should have been all along."

Crowley had the distinct sense that _ours_ did not include anyone but Satan.

"We'll see you at your star work again, darling. We know there were finishing touches you weren't able to get to."

The majestic plural had returned, even if the _VOICE_ hadn't. Crowley said, "Lord."

"You're tired. Go to sleep. Eric will show you out later."

It was dismissal, of a sort. Except Lucifer waited until after Crowley fell asleep against him to leave.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley (unlike Malphas) gets to leave Hell!

Crowley miracled himself back into clothes and nominally clean before Eric showed up to collect him. It was easy to make sure he didn't look like he'd just been fucked and slightly harder to shake the impression that he'd also just been turned inside out. Eventually he decided it was all in his head and that if he ran himself a boiling hot bath back in his own flat, his skin would stop crawling.

Before he vanished his wings, he stretched them experimentally. Touched the spot where Malphas had dug a ragged hole in his muscle. It didn't so much as twinge. The only things that still hurt were his hips and the … the bites. Only the one on his throat had cut his skin, but all of them looked angry and red. Still. Healing himself in Hell - especially when Satan had gone to such deliberate pains to mark him - was a bad idea. It'd have to wait.

He walked over to a mirror in the corner and made a face at his reflection. Miracled half his messy hair into a braid. Okay, _now_ he didn't look like he'd just been fucked.

"You forgot the hickey on your neck," Eric said.

Crowley whipped around, snarling. There was only one Eric. He would've taken zero. "When the fuck did you stop having reflections?"

Both of Eric's eyebrows went up. In a tone of complete bafflement, they asked, "What would we do with a reflection?"

And Crowley would have had a clever answer to that, except he'd just noticed this Eric was missing their signature scarf. Instead they wore a chain of heavy silver links. Hanging from it was a single black feather. Crowley stared at it, and then he pushed his sunglasses down and sank a punch of demonic power into his glare.

"It's not _yours._ " Eric covered the feather with their palm like they thought he might snatch it away.

"Should've pegged you for poor taste," Crowley said, sweeping past them.

They hadn't bothered knocking or closing the door behind themselves, so he was able to stride right into the hallway. It was unfortunately familiar. This section was wide enough that Eric had room to run around in front of him, but in the distance the walls began to taper until they met either side of a black rectangle. Walking up to the obsidian door was unsettling both because he'd noticed Eric not having a reflection and because he'd been expecting to be taken to the escalator.

"I thought I was supposed to be leaving."

"Don't ask _us_ what Lord Beelzebub is thinking."

"You just do whatever you're told to do."

"Yeah? Or we get disposed of? Not everybody can get away with the shit you pull."

"Do you-" Crowley choked, ground to a halt, and gestured, making useless sweeping motions in the air. Not that he wanted to mimic Beelzebub's methodical work with the pins or Satan possessively stroking his wings. "Do you talk to yourselves? Ever? Because _getting away with shit_ isn't how I'd characterize the past twelve hours-"

"Are you two going to stop thizz squabbling? I have thingzz to do."

Eric whirled around and Crowley jerked to attention. The obsidian door had been pulled open and Beelzebub stood in the empty frame, their face flat. The paths their flies traced in the air were slow, lazy.

"I told you to stop calling me _things!"_ an annoyed voice called.

Beelzebub's eyes narrowed. Their flies halted in the air.

Crowley pinched his fingers together and drew them across his lips like a zipper. Eric mimicked locking their mouth and throwing away the key.

"Deliver me from demonzz," Beelzebub muttered, stalking back to their desk.

Together, Eric and Crowley inched into the office. And it was the office, not another prep chamber. There was the flickering fluorescent light. The stainless steel desk, dented in strange places. The blinds Crowley had never seen open that covered what could not possibly be a window. And Zaebos, sprawled sideways on a cracked leather couch that definitely hadn't been here the last time Crowley visited. She'd lost the military jacket in favor of a slinky green … article of clothing. Crowley decided it had to be a dress and not a nightgown, because he didn't want to be looking at a Count of Hell in lingerie.

He also didn't want to be looking at a crocodile, but he wasn't in the habit of arguing with things that weighed four hundred pounds or had that many teeth. There was a ragged, red strip of something hanging from the corner of her mouth.

"I'm so bored, Beelzebub. I thought you said your meetings were over. Sobek needs to stretch her legs. Don't you, Sobek?" Zaebos reached down to pat the crocodile's head.

"Almost over. I said almost over. I let you stay to watch, didn't I?"

"You did." Zaebos's eyes glittered. She scrunched her nose at Crowley and Eric. "Even gave Sobek a treat. Never let anybody tell you our Prince doesn't have any soft spots, dearies."

Eric let out a manic little laugh and did not look at Beelzebub. Crowley didn't either. Crowley didn't have to ask what the treat had been, or what Zaebos had been invited to watch. Crowley had frozen.

On the other side of the room - also new, like the couch - was a stone slab. On it: a pair of wings, pinned out with metal spikes as thick as his thumb. That explained where Eric's pendant had come from. No one had miracled away the blood from these wings. Someone _had_ miracled away the demon in the middle. Or - Or done something. Disposed of him. There were jagged strips of skin and muscle left where the wings had been cut away from Malphas's body, and Crowley's back tightened in reflexive pain at the sight.

Beelzebub cleared their throat. Brandished a pen when Crowley made himself look over. "Sign your review so I can get rid of you."

Signing his name burned his fingers, as expected. He didn't bother trying to read anything on the page. (Which was not just 'sucks to be you' in Beelzebub's handwriting, but did for some reason include a pie chart.) There would be nothing in it that could help. Then he flipped the folder shut and held the pen out to Beelzebub.

Who didn't move to take it. They lowered their voice and asked, "All'zz well with our Lord?"

For a split second Crowley considered saying, loudly, 'Oh, do you mean has Satan stopped talking fondly of Heaven as if the rest of us wouldn't get our throat slit for doing the same?' He didn't know about Zaebos, but Eric was the biggest gossip in Hell. The sun wouldn't have a chance to set anywhere on Earth before every demon knew about it.

And then Crowley, of course, would be the one with his wings on display in Beelzebub's office.

"Ask him yourself," he said. He shoved his sunglasses tight to his face and twisted his mouth into a grin. "My review was gold, right?"

"Get fucked, Crowley." Beelzebub tossed the pen into a chipped mug that said _#2 BOSS_ on the side. There was a certain amount of tension no longer present in the line of their shoulders. "And get out."

Crowley straightened his spine, squared his shoulders, and strode out like absolutely nothing in his body hurt anymore. That earned him an appraising look from Zaebos that he filed away for review never. She slid off the couch. Crowley sped up, but she just settled herself on the corner of Beelzebub's desk.

He kept walking when he hit the hall. Eric started to close the door, and then they both heard Zaebos say, "Let Dagon do that, my Prince." 

That was followed by the soft sound of papers - a lot of papers - fluttering to the floor.

Eric looked at Crowley. Then they slammed the door shut.

Neither of them ran, but they did make it to the next level up in record time.

"Can't believe," Crowley panted, because he felt like breathing hard and not because they'd just raced each other up a staircase so they didn't have to overhear anything else, "you stole a grand-president's feather."

Eric, who was also clearly not feeling the strain of running up a hundred-step staircase, gasped out, "Malphas is at the back of the line for reincorporation. Having this feather is going to be a mark, let us tell you."

Crowley resisted the urge to trip them. Picking on an Eric was too easy. It never felt as good as you'd think it would. He scowled, instead, and shoved his hands into his pockets. "We've all been at the end of the line for new bodies, Eric. A year or so and Malphas is gonna take it out on all of you-"

"We said the _back_ of the line," Eric said, both eyebrows going up. "Behind _us._ "

Crowley tripped, which was how he realized they'd gotten to another fucking staircase - this one shorter, at least. He caught himself at the last second and jerked upright, careening wildly up the last couple of steps. Eric tossed their head back and let out a peal of laughter so loud it echoed.

"I can finish walking myself out."

"Just because somebody's finally in line behind us doesn't mean we want to get this body discorporated," Eric said immediately.

Crowley flipped them off.

When they finally got to the exit and the bottom of the escalator, which from this angle ascended through near-impenetrable darkness to the tiny pinprick of light that represented Earth. If his wings had still been out, Crowley would have flung himself up to it.

Eric grumbled.

"What?"

They pointed at the escalator. "It's working."

The words, "...Yeah? It's always working?" came out of Crowley's mouth before he could think about it.

Then he did think about it, and his stomach dropped.

"Oh, yeah, maintenance is real on top of the escalator." Eric crossed their arms over their chest. "The last time we had to go to Earth, we had to walk halfway. Then it shot forward so fast we almost fell off."

Even Beelzebub didn't have working lights. Not in their own office, not when they weren't doing special art projects for Satan. But Crowley had never had any problems with the escalator into or out of Hell. Oh, sure, if he bothered swinging by his desk to work on a report, weird runny green liquid dripped on his left elbow every thirty-four seconds, but the escalator…

Whenever Malphas got a body back, he'd probably find it running backwards.

"Look, it's been horrible. Let's never do this again. Say hi to Eric for me," Crowley said, taking several jerky steps forward and planting himself solidly on the bottom step. He gripped the railing so he wouldn't be tempted to try flying after all.

"Oh!" Eric sounded genuinely surprised. "Can we get your email for them? They'll send you a copy of the M25 graphs-"

"Can't hear you, escalator's moving too fast!"

The escalator spit him out at the end of the Angel station platform. Nobody noticed him walking out of somewhere a person should not be walking out of, probably because they were all in too much of a good mood. The platform was nearly clear. It was 8:30 in the morning and the trains had clearly been running on time since the start of rush hour.

To add insult to injury a train pulled in while Crowley walked past. It was mostly full. He watched a mother board with a baby in a sling, and a couple of teenagers leap up to make sure she got a seat.

He snapped his fingers. The doors beeped, closed halfway, and opened again.

_"Apologies. Minor delay due to door malfunction."_

The groan from the passengers was so loud, Crowley thought he might have the energy to stop for coffee before crashing at his flat for the next ten weeks. It only bothered him a little that there was blue sky everywhere he looked when he hit the street. His mobile powered up fine. No ill effects from being infernally swept away along with his clothes.

As soon as it reconnected with the network, a text message popped up.

_KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK, DARLING. WE EXPECT TO SEE YOU AGAIN BEFORE LONG. YOUR NEXT CENTENNIAL REVIEW, PERHAPS._

Right.

A hundred years, he could work with.


End file.
